– reliable information source

The players will be able to place their own music in mp3 format into a folder and listen to it in-game. It’s simply shuffled, but gets played according to battle conditions (starts with battle start and ends with battle end, for example).

What to expect in Public Test 0.5.11?

Armour Viewer

To enable this feature, click on the button over the ship’s performance characteristics. Keep in mind that:

The armour layout is displayed only for ships that are owned by the player.

Due to the complex construction of ships, an option to enable/disable the following separate armour types has been added:

Superstructures

Casemate

Auxiliary Rooms

Plating

Vital Ship Parts (i.e. citadel or, for destroyers, the central part of the hull)

Main Turrets

Epicenter

A new game mode called Epicenter has been added to Random Battles. The aim of this mode is to encourage aggressive gameplay with close range encounters. The mode is a modified version of Domination mode with the following differences:

In this mode, key areas are represented by three concentric circles with the following rules:

Players that gain control over the largest circle are only capturing this area.

Players that gain control over the middle circle are capturing both this area and the largest circle.

Players that gain control over the smallest circle are in fact capturing all three areas at the same time.

Cyclone Notifications

Thanks to your feedback, the predictability of cyclones has been improved. To ensure a clear indication of any impending weather changes, we have added the following indicators to the battle HUD:

A dynamic icon labelled “Cyclone” and a warning that spotting ranges will be decreased.

A warning and a countdown timer that will be displayed before the start and end of the cyclone.

The exact moment when the warnings will be displayed will be determined based on the results of the Public Test

Maps

A new map named Archipelago has been added to the game. The map is located between the Far East islands in the Northern Pacific. This calm region used to be a safe harbour for scientific research, but now it has become the arena for vicious naval battles.

The Land of Fire map has been changed. Our research and your feedback have shown that this map caused difficulties to a large group of players, mainly because of the location of several of the islands. The changes applied in the update 0.5.11 Public Test are aimed at keeping the originality of the map, as well as making its gameplay more enjoyable for every ship type.

The Shatter map has also been changed. Our research results have shown that it is one of the hardest maps to play on in the game. Many aspects of this map require a high skill level, as well as planning the team’s actions in advance. The main goal of the change applied in this update is to make the gameplay more enjoyable for various ship types, while still retaining the map’s distinctive features.

Other Changes

Balance Changes:

The reload time for the “Surveillance Radar” consumable has been lowered to make cruisers more effective against destroyers.

“Hydroacoustic Search” and “Defensive AA Fire” consumables are now placed in different slots, which will allow cruisers to choose both in order to strengthen their supporting role.

USN fighters’ ammunition capacities have been increased by 30%. This change will make fighter configurations stronger, thus making US carriers’ roles more team-oriented and focused on protecting allies.

Interface:

Switching between Port, Modules, Tech Tree and Profile tabs in the Port has been optimised.

All questions have been answered by Philip Molodkovets: supertest manager from Saint Petersburg, Russia.

We start off with a hot topic question right off the bat, asked by HMS_H00D, and you can already guess what it is…

Q: When is the first line of British ships coming to the game?A: We are planning to launch it this year. More information will be shared at gamescom 2016 in Cologne, Germany.

TheLordFlash is following up with an even more pressing question, but will the devs be able to talk about it just yet?

Q: What nations/ships can we expect in the coming year in World of Warships?A: This is subject to separate announcements – keep your eyes on the Portal and our Forums!

MrFingers asks:

Q: How do you decide which ship is a viable tech-tree ship, which isn’t, and which can become a Premium Ship?A: We try to compose the tech trees in logical way, in order to create a historical and balanced in-game progression system. As for Premiums, we love the idea of famous ships with some history or some unusual ships with special gameplay traits. In general, however, there are no strict rules.

Player modeste poses a question few dare to ask nowadays…

Q: Submarines are missing in the game to create naval formations. They could be useful when we capture an area because they could launch torpedoes. Are we getting submarines?A: Well, there are no plans for subs now. Things could change, theoretically, but we are quite busy with the classes we already have in the game now.

t0ffik1 wonders about the balancing of the game.

Q: What are the Devs plans to balance Tier X?A: The same process we do for any other Tier: to monitor server stats and feedback and to make changes when needed.

Danziger_ asks about a planned feature.

Q: When will clans be introduced to WoWS?A: We’re working on it. We definitely want to do this, but currently it’s not possible to state the date or version when this particular feature will appear.

ROCKSTEEL79 is interested in platform diversity.

Q: Are there any plans to create a PS4 version of WoWS?A: We are interested in all platforms, but there are no plans that we can share for now.

Erik_Aukan has trouble paying his bills in the game…

Q: Do you plan to improve the economy (repair costs) and game modes, to encourage players to play less passive and be less afraid of high repair bills?A: Yes. We definitely plan to expand the number of activities, for which players receive rewards after battle, in order to encourage aggressive tactics and reward team play.

mea0w is wondering about Team Battles and where they have gone.

Q: The population of Team Battles thinned out dramatically at the end of the pilot season. What changes do you plan to make to make them more interesting and rewarding?A: There are several major problems with Team Battles we discovered after release (thanks to all the players for their feedback). Currently we cannot discuss the future of this mode. Let’s wait for its next version at least on the super test (More information will be shared on the Portal when the developers are ready to share anything).

nibloke wants to pimp their ship up.

Q: Will we ever see cosmetic adjustments for our ships, like having your own flags, choosing your own colours, putting your own names/numbers on your ships and so on?A: Probably, because this part of the game is currently being discussed internally. This is not our top priority, but surely it would be a nice feature to have.

Cmdr_Kouta wants to customise his carrier.

Q: Is it going to be possible in the future to select custom carrier loadouts, similar to selecting ammunition in World of Tanks?A: For now we’re planning to stick with preset loadouts.

MadMike82 asks about rewarding skilled gameplay.

Q: Currently there are no rewards for performing useful manoeuvres that support teamplay, like spotting enemies with destroyers, and it is also only barely worth it to provide AA cover to battleships. Are there any rewards and changes planned in this regard, to encourage teamplay?A: Yes, we’re planning to do this in one of the upcoming updates.

Cayden_Cailean asks about tech-trees.

Q: Are there any plans to divide the BB tech trees into battlecruisers and battleships and do the same with the cruisers, dividing them into light and armoured ones?A: There are some plans to work on the existing tech-trees and probably re-organise some branches, but we are not going to add new in-game classes for now.

Q. My question concerns the latest collection of data regarding spotting and tanking. More particularly tanking. Is it possible, technically speaking, to monitor conditions where a player is tanking? In other words, do evading volleys at the border of the map and maneuvering between four battleships have different weights that come into the calculation of tanking? If so, will they be rewarded differently?A. At the moment, it is not possible, but, according to our data, players who are more active during battles receive more tanking rewards. If, in the future, we see an urgent need to do so, we will add logging conditions.

. It’s no secret that a large part of the community is waiting for clans (in one form or another).
We know that it’s being worked on, etc., etc. and that it will be released someday.
So I wanted to know what department is assigned to this work and what parallel work (maybe more important tasks than clan functionality) they are assigned to?A. It is in the hands of the team that is in charge of what we call the metagame (economy, ranked battles, team battles, etc.), together with colleagues from Minsk who are working on clans and the global map in general. We plan to present their work to the players before the end of the year. We will try really hard to.

Q. Where is the long-due armour visualisation feature?A. It is nearly ready. We will make some final changes and will try to release it in one of the next few updates. If you recall, we promised we would release it in 2016. There is still time until then.

Q. Not so long ago, you explained that developers are happy with how fire mechanics are working. One of the arguments presented was that cruisers need to have a chance against battleships. I concur but my question is not about that.
If we take into account the fact that cruisers need to have a fighting chance against battleships, then what about battleships who get burnt to the ground by invis-fire?
If you want, we can discount firing from smoke. Even then, what can a battleship player do when a cruiser fires on him from stealth? Since he cannot catch him, he doesn’t stand a chance.A. The situation you described is indeed possible, especially in 1v1 duels. On the other hand, a battleship can also remove more than half the HP’s of a cruiser in one salvo.Currently, we do not think invis-fire is harmful since it requires a very specific build (which makes the ship weaker in other areas) and cannot be used very often in battle when there are many players.Regarding fires mechanics, since you asked, I will answer the question in details; I know there are many players interested in this matter that believe fires are more deadly than what they actually are. This is often the case with battleships captains. As an example, let us take tier 8 – 10 battleships, since it is a widely discussed topic.1. Battleships popularity in generalThe statistics regarding the RU-cluster from January to July show that battleships popularity is stable and even slightly increased. If we take all standard battles played on the cluster during that period, battleships representation increased from 32.9 to 35.1%. Thus, they make up slightly more than a third of all ships. There is no reason not to expect a slight increase in popularity with the release of the German battleships, or, more accurately, there is no reason to expect a decrease at least.2. Battleship damage distribution (damage received)During the last 30 days, battleships largest source of damage received comes from AP shells (42 % – 45.6 %), torpedoes plus flooding (19.9 % – 20.2 %). HE shells account for 16.8 % – 17.8 % and fires, 14.5 % – 17.6 %. Also remember that citadel damage can be healed by 10 % (that is of course damage from AP shells and torpedoes direct damage), damage to the superstructure, stern and bow by 50 % (here we can also add damage from HE shells and bombs), and damage from fires and flooding can be fully healed. That is why a badly damaged battleship can withdraw from battle to heal up and come with as much as half of his HP back.3. Combat effectivenessRegarding the potential for dealing damage, battleships do not disappoint, combining the roles of damage dealers and tanks. Their concurrents are carriers and in about every category, there is a tough fight going on between these two classes regarding who is the best.Destroyers and cruisers, which, according to some players, burn the poor battleships and flood them under waves of torpedoes cannot even dream of dealing that much damage. Moreover, according to those same players, battleships are easy food for these classes since they have a lot of HP on which to feed.Regarding winrate, battleships are about the same as other classes.Their AA is normal (only cruisers are above them because of their barrage ability).Survivability (% of battles in which a ship has survived until the end) for battleships is considerably higher than for cruisers or destroyers.4. A very brief summaryBattleships are played. Battleships survive. Battleships inflict damage. Battleships are a good and useful class. If we were to buff them, by increasing their survivability (especially against fires and HE shells), they would be overpowered. Our game would become World of Battleships. And that is bad. 35.1 % popularity, we can live with that. But it is bordering on being too much.So, if we were to follow players’ suggestions, we would have to nerf them in another way. If they had a better survivability, we would have to nerf their damage for example, and according to our experience, such change would not be well received by players.That is why we do not plan to make any considerable changes to battleship balance or to fire mechanics.

Q. I once asked if you thought that Moskva was performing too well. You said no.

Nation

Battles

Win rate

Avg. frags

Avg. damage

Avg. experience

Avg. planes destroyed

Kills / deaths

Moskva

U.S.S.R.

22 769

57.45 %

1.09

80 173

1 845

4.98

2.83

Zao

Japan

81 408

56.48 %

1.14

80 057

1 980

4.19

2.86

Hindenburg

Germany

29 639

55.55 %

1.02

70 253

1 908

5.98

2.29

Des Moines

U.S.A.

46 225

54.36 %

1.08

65 496

2 072

7.05

2.05

I also asked the same question about Khabarovsk.

Nation

Battles

Win rate

Avg. frags

Avg. damage

Avg. experience

Avg. planes destroyed

Kills / deaths

Khabarovsk

U.S.S.R.

28 141

58.91 %

1.07

58 529

1 868

1.26

2.22

Shimakaze

Japan

92 548

52.40 %

0.96

50 122

1 670

0.30

1.92

Gearing

U.S.A.

30 020

55.26 %

1.07

48 752

1 985

1.31

1.83

So, here’s my question. You plan to nerf Zao, but you don’t see any problems with the overperforming Moskva.
Even Yamato cannot pen its bow.
Please tell me, is it a coincidence that a nation with such a mediocre fleet, of which half the branch is paper ships perform so well?A. Cruiser Moskva and destroyer Khabarovsk have one characteristic in common: they are nearly ideal to fight against their pairs. On the other hand, they also share a common disadvantage: a high detection range. It is easier to avoid 1v1 duel with them than it is with other ships. And firing on them is the same as with other ships. Moskva is easily (and more importantly, more constantly) damaged by battleships and Khabarovsk, by cruisers.We can say that these ships have a very distinctive role and a very distinctive disadvantage. They are bullies, who can give their pairs hell but who can be easily taken down by the “adults” (by the class above).In the current gameplay, we do not see the necessity to nerf their characteristics. Improve their concurrents, that is entirely possible.